Densho Digital Archive - Yuri Kochiyama Interview (denshovh-kyuri-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

MA: And meanwhile, Bill, your husband, was overseas fighting.

YK: Right.

MA: Okay, with the 442.

YK: Yeah.

MA: And you were working and living in Mississippi?

YK: Yeah.

MA: What was that like? I mean, I guess that was the first time you had lived in the South, right? I mean, outside of camp. And seeing, I guess, at that point, the racial dynamics there? Is that the first time you've really been exposed to that?

YK: I didn't... you know, it may seem strange or not so strange that the USO, this Japanese American USO called Aloha USO was on the main drag, of course. And I kept wondering why no black soldiers came in. Because a USO is to serve any American soldiers. And they were all white, whether they were in the Navy, Army or what. And no blacks. Asians, the Chinese soldiers came, Japanese American soldiers, but no black soldiers. And it wasn't until several years later, when we were living in New York, when I was working... would it be at that... in New York, where would I be? What year would it be?

MA: The late '40s, 1950, the '50s? When you were in New York or Harlem?

YK: Yeah, New York. But I recall that no black soldiers came to the Mississippi USO. Oh, I know. The first place I worked in New York was Chock Full O'Nuts. I don't know if you know what Chock Full O'Nuts is. It's a restaurant, very famous restaurant, one of the cleanest restaurants. It only hired blacks, except for managers. And I got a job as a waitress; I loved that job. And it was the first time I'm working with just black people, mostly the waitresses, so they were women, but there were waiters, too. And I finally, I asked... two of the guys were from the South. And so I mentioned to them that I lived a year and a half in Mississippi, and at a USO which serviced everybody, but no black soldiers came in. And so they said, "What was the address?" I gave the address, I couldn't forget, 222 Pine, he said, "That's the main drag. No black soldiers, even wearing a uniform, can go in anywhere on the main drag." They could not go on Pine Street or Main Street. I was shocked. Then, for the first time, it made me think more what America was about, the segregation. Then I got really interested and wanted to find out everything I could about what black people have gone through. And it made me ashamed when I could think of Asians were just as racist as whites towards blacks, anyway. That changed me.